May 3, 2022
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Trump’s Truth Social platform could help propel GOP to majorities in the 2022 midterms and beyond
By Robert Romano
No risk, no reward.
That’s the lesson official Washington, D.C. should now be learning from former President Donald Trump’s foray into running a social media company, TruthSocial.com, which is currently running a successful public beta that Apple customers can download in the App Store.
Before the app has even been offered on other platforms such as Android or via desktop computers, President Trump has already garnered almost 2.4 million followers — in a week — as the app rocketed to the top of the App Store as the most downloaded app the past several days.
Before he was banned by Twitter and Facebook in 2021, Trump had more than 80 million followers, and while he is still quite a ways off from where he was, he and the team at Truth Social including CEO Devin Nunes have to be very pleased with the current rollout so far.
And here’s why.
Anecdotally, we can tell you that so far the Americans for Limited Government’s @LimitGov profile is seeing significant engagement that appears vastly superior to other social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook despite smaller initial subscription counts.
To be fair, ALG’s cartoonist A.F. Branco and Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes, did each give us generous boosts on the platform. That will get you follows, but that doesn’t necessarily mean those followers will engage with your content. In this case, thankfully, they are engaging.
We can see the difference compared to other platforms. And Truth Social wants us to grow.
In other words, there might be fewer people on the Truth Social platform so far compared to some of the other more established platforms, but the ones that are on Truth Social already are not merely engaging with posts, they’re actually clicking off of the platform to the offsite content that is being shared at a much, much higher conversion rate.
Now, how that holds up over time is another question, but Trump seems to be onto something here, especially if one plans on being politically active on the platform. So far, Truth Social appears to be attracting, at least initially, a primarily conservative, Republican audience whose users also happen to be very strong supporters of Trump and are very civic-minded.
These are likely voters. By appearing exclusively on Truth Social, Trump is driving engagement — and giving Republicans in the midterms a reason to log in.
In the midterms, enthusiasm always comes into play, where the opposition party tends to generate more of it than the incumbent party. In midterm elections dating back to 1906 through 2018, the party that occupies the White House usually loses on average 31 seats in the House, and about three seats in the Senate. That’s more than enough for Republicans to take back one or both chambers of Congress in 2022.
On that count, presently in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted April 24-28 of registered voters, 83 percent of Republicans report they are absolutely certain to vote in November, compared to 76 percent of Democrats, giving Republicans a 7-point edge.
More broadly, Republicans are leading the generic ballot by on average 4.2 points, 46.4 percent to 42.2 percent, according to RealClearPolitcs.com.
These are all readings one would expect to see in a midterm cycle with a Democratic President and Republicans out of power.
That is why Truth Social is almost certainly the place where Republican members and candidates for Congress are going to want to gravitate towards in 2022 for the November midterms. What better way to build a fresh list of supporters on a platform that is finally not controlled by Silicon Valley? This could be a game-changer.
Here, Trump has figured out a way to capture the energy Republicans are gaining through the midterms, by giving conservative activists a platform that gives them the information they want, and causes like Americans for Limited Government they can support wholeheartedly.
This is an opportunity for the conservative movement to grow.
And Trump is getting every single one of their email addresses with every single download from the App Store, who can now follow him every day. They won’t all be his supporters, but here, Trump has created a product that grants exclusive access to his thoughts and ideas, whether they are about what direction the country should be headed in, criticizing President Joe Biden or if he is endorsing candidates on the campaign trail.
Trump is helping the GOP to build a wider platform in 2022, and if he chooses to run for president again, in 2024. How many other Republican candidates will have a social media app to help them win the Republican primary or general election in 2024? How many would have even tried to stand up to Big Tech’s tyranny in this way?
In modern politics, this is not only how to build a movement, but an institution.
By launching Truth Social, especially after Twitter was liberated by Elon Musk as a free speech platform, Trump appeared to be taking a great risk to his brand and reputation as a successful entrepreneur. And now it looks like the American people are rewarding him for delivering a product that works that it turns out many of them really, really wanted. Good for him.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2022/05/trumps-truth-social-platform-could-help-propel-gop-to-majorities-in-the-2022-midterms-and-beyond/
Cartoon: Scary Poppins
Click here for a higher-level resolution version.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2022/05/cartoon-scary-poppins/
Video: Civil Asset Forfeiture is Government Sponsored Theft w/ Dan Greenberg of Competitive Enterprise Institute
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59ODIVM3ZAg
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from the New York Post’s Adriana Cohen, for everyone who was every shadowbanned on Twitter or any other social media, Elon Musk is a hero for taking the platform over and trying to make it a free speech platform:
Adriana Cohen: From someone who's been shadow-banned, Elon Musk is a hero
By Adriana Cohen
Elon Musk buying Twitter and taking over the controversial social media platform is the greatest defense of freedom and democracy since President Ronald Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” in 1987.
For years now, Twitter, Facebook, Google and other Big Tech giants — run by rabid left-wing political activists — have been wrongfully and deceitfully silencing scores of conservatives and anyone who strays from their stringent liberal orthodoxy. Whether those who dissent from the elites’ political viewpoints are exposing facts or the truth is irrelevant; all that matters to Big Tech oligarchs is controlling the narrative and the dissemination of information in order to keep Democrats in power at any cost.
Freedom of speech and free elections be dammed.
In September 2018, I testified before Congress at The State of Intellectual Freedom in America hearing, sharing my experience with social media censorship. I was shocked when Twitter and Facebook unjustifiably shadow-banned my nationally syndicated column for years.
They also censored my high-profile radio interviews with major politicians in Washington and other influencers for no reason other than they simply didn’t want me — or others like me in the media — swaying public opinion that could cost Democrats in future elections.
I never violated their terms of service; I simply posted my popular columns carried by newspapers and media outlets nationwide, my news-breaking radio interviews and my mainstream conservative opinions held by half the country.
When I interviewed Donald Trump on my former Herald Radio podcast in May 2019, I tweeted to my thousands of Twitter followers about the exciting interview. Response? Crickets. My tweet announcing the exclusive interview and subsequent recording of it got virtually zero traction on these slanted social-media platforms, but elsewhere in the real world, the interview went viral. Major media picked it up, breaking news nationally — but if you were on Twitter or Facebook, you’d never know it because they wrongfully restricted my content.
Just like they did to the New York Post, blocking its accurate reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop in the run-up to the 2020 election.
Make no mistake; this is exactly what Communist China does to its people and President Vladimir Putin is doing right now in Russia. These repressive regimes — controlled by unaccountable brutal dictators who commit heinous human rights violations and other atrocities — censor information they deem “misinformation” and punish journalists who expose the truth if they dare publish anything the government doesn’t like.
Chillingly, that’s where America was headed with lightning speed if Musk hadn’t intervened and purchased Twitter this week.
The Tesla CEO fully understands — as do many conservatives — that when Big Tech says it’s just censoring “misinformation,” that means it disproportionally mutes conservative opinions it disagrees with. There’s no fairness on these social-media networks or equal application of its so-called rules, which are so blatantly biased and arbitrary they’re meaningless.
Big Tech banned Trump from its platforms because it claims he’s “dangerous” and a threat to Democracy, but social-media networks permit the Taliban and other terrorists to have accounts. They allow human traffickers on their platforms and other nefarious actors — including the Russian government and/or its officials, who are actively committing genocide and war crimes against the Ukrainian people as the world watches in horror.
Obviously, their “rules” are a total joke. Hence, many conservatives got fed up with the rigged system and quit Twitter in protest, me included, as well as other platforms. Can you blame us?
Bottom line: Freedom of speech is the bedrock of a democracy. Without freedom of expression, a free press and the ability to share ideas without fear of reprisal, we become subjects of the state, spoon-fed propaganda by elites in power. Communist China and Russia, for instance, restrict their citizens from accessing the Internet, social-media and/or other vital information — a terrifying reality no American should support; I don’t care how you vote.
Bravo to Musk for acting and saving America from this dangerous trajectory. He’s a modern-day Ronald Reagan protecting freedom and values we hold dear.
To view online: https://nypost.com/2022/04/29/from-someone-whos-been-shadow-banned-musk-is-a-hero/